Hi everyone and welcome to this weeks blog post. My life is still crazy at the moment (major understatement of the year). If you have messaged me in the last week I am not ignoring you I just haven’t got around to replying to you. This week I will talk about the Marriage Referendum in Ireland, Eurovision, my Dad and stuff connected with it all. So I had better begin.
I want to say thank you to everyone for helping me through the last few weeks. I said in last weeks post I didn’t want to talk about my Dad and asked for you not to get in touch with me and just carry on as normal. Thank you for doing this as it means a lot. At the moment we are just waiting around for more information so until then I won’t say too much more on here. I have talked to some friends this week about it and that has helped. Once I know as family what we are going to have to deal with I will let you know but until then I will keep it to myself. The last few weeks have been tough but we are plodding through it and have a lot of uncertainty hanging over us and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t getting to us all. I have tried to put on a brave face but I can’t keep it up forever so if I am not usual self then don’t worry I’ll be fine.
It is hard at the moment to find time for myself when I know I need to be there for others. I feel guilty for feeling this way but I also know I have to look after myself and my own wellbeing.This weekend has proven that. I felt dreadful on Friday and Saturday and I am not sure if it was some sort of stomach bug or I had just run myself down or a combination of the two. Both my work and personal lives are quite hectic at the moment and somedays I have struggled to keep going with them both. I am glad it is a Bank Holiday weekend as I have needed the extra day to rest.
On Saturday it was the Eurovision Song Contest. I have to admit I was disappointed with this years contest. There were too many ballads and not much happening on stage. My top 3 were Australia, Cyprus and Serbia. When I first heard the UK entry I thought it was OK but since then I had grown a bit bored of it and didn’t expect much in the contest. It is fair to say we did badly but I actually thought we would do worse. I know there are still politics involved in the voting but you still need to send a decent act if you want to win. I remember back in the 80’s and 90’s the UK entry for Eurovision would often get top in the UK charts. This shows we sending musical acts which suited music in that year. The UK has some of the best music artists in the world. In the Top 10 Global Recording Artists 2014 the UK had 5 artists. These were One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Sam Smith. Yet this year we sent a pop/dance act to Eurovision. This is where we were going wrong. Because of the image of Eurovision in the UK it is unlikely we will send a big name to the competition although I think that is needed. Looking at the charts now we have artists who would do well in Eurovision next year such as Paloma Faith, Ella Henderson, Take That, George Ezra, Ellie Goulding and Rixton. The artist doesn’t even have to be from the UK so we could have someone such as Kylie. If we send a current well-known name it will show Europe we are taking the contest seriously because the rest of Europe does take it serious. It was good to have Australia in the show this year and even though they didn’t give the UK any points I would like to see them stay in the contest. I am glad Sweden won though as it was looking like Russia at one point. I did like the song from Russia however due to the current political climate in Russia it would have been wrong to have it held there. A lot of fans of Eurovision are gay and it would put their safety at risk if they went to Russia to watch Eurovision. I know at the end of the day it is a song contest and politics should not come into it but I think Russia needs to improve its human rights and stop its military actions elsewhere in Europe before they are considered an appropriate host. Well let’s see what happens in 12 months time in Sweden.
Finally I want to end this blog post on something more positive. On Friday Ireland held a referendum over Same Sex Marriage. This was the first country in the world to hold a referendum on this subject and I didn’t think they would vote yes. Religion still plays a major part of everyday life in Ireland and I thought this would have meant the result would have been no. Instead almost 62% of people voted yes to same-sex marriage. This is an amazing result and means even more that people voted for it. In other countries where it is law it was just past passed through Parliament but by having a referendum it means the result is even more significant. I am not saying that England, Scotland and Wales should now have a referendum as it has already been passed in these countries but I think if a country has yet to decide on same-sex marriage then it is an option for these countries to consider. The yes vote also shows how far society has moved on in the last 30 years. Most young people don’t see why being gay is a big deal and just accept it which is brilliant. For me marriage is not about religion but making a public and legal commitment to someone special in front of people who mean a lot to you both. The yes vote sends a clear message to the LGBT community that you are equal and not a second class person in society and that simple action of voting yes has changed people’s lives and will continue to change them.
Well that is it for this week. Sorry for the lateness of the blog but as it is a Bank Holiday it is still a weekend so sort of still on time. I’ll do it all again next weekend. But until then bye for now.
Top Programme of the Week – Peter Kay’s Car Share
Top Song of the Week – Guy Sebastian – Tonight Again
Book I Am Currently Reading – Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky
Tim Buckles' Blog 
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